Is Apple in "Drift Mode"?
There was a time when it was popular to refer to Apple as "beleaguered". Apple's management, under and including Michael Spindler, had made so many mistakes that the company was on a critical failure path.
And yet, the spirit of Apple continued amongst the ranks of the employees. Various projects, some ill-founded and some remarkable, were funded in the hopes that one of the Apple groups would pull a rabbit out of the hat and resuscitate the company. It was not to be.
And then Mr. Jobs arrived and put a cold, hard spotlight on every Apple project. Some projects were simply pie in the sky. Some were dramatically unprofitable. Others didn't seem to fit into the company's strategic vision.
In any case, they were all cancelled, each and every one.
WHAT MONEY CAN BUYRight now, Apple is ready to go into what I would call a drift mode. Several important company initiatives have been fulfilled, and there is the looming danger that Apple could lose its focus under the very same leader who saved the company.
It all goes back to the idea of a discredited operating system code-named Copland.
Lest we forget, the legacy of Apple survived throughout the days of Copland. Copland was not so much a technology, technology that it was, as an idea. That idea was that computers should be easier to use, more intuitive, and assume more responsibility. Copland was envisioned as the road to the eternal flame called the "Knowledge Navigator." The fact that the initiative failed was not due to a lack of courage and vision by the Apple engineers; rather, it was due to such gross mismanagement and stupidity about operating systems that the Copland project was doomed to fail from the start.
In response to this crisis of mismanagement, Mr. Gil Amelio correctly surmised that Apple Computer was out of time. That is, by the time yet another new operating system could be conceived, funded, written, tested, and deployed, Apple Computer would be another casualty of the computer technology wars and long dead (but never forgotten).
So what Mr. Amelio did was to rescue the company by buying an operating system outright from NeXT, Inc. Cold, hard cash. We should not forget that.
This operating system is indeed powerful, capable and quasi-elegant. Open BSD is a secure and capable OS, but it was never designed for the everyday consumer. As a result, Apple has had to disguise that fact by decorating it with an exciting and splashy new graphical user interface called Aqua.
So much for the forward looking concepts of delegation, initiative, cooperation, assumption of responsibilities, and visibility into intentions and activities of an OS as proposed by the Copland project.
WHAT MONEY CANNOT BUYThe legacy of the modern Steve Jobs is that he saved the company that he founded. He did that, as we have all observed, by making computers that people crave. Despite the aging and awkward legacy MacOS 6 and 7, enough new life was breathed into MacOS 8 and 9 to disguise its fundamental weaknesses long enough to redesign the Apple hardware. After all, it takes five years to write and deploy a new OS, but terrific new hardware can be designed and brought to market in 12 months. This has been the genius of Steve Jobs: understanding how to hold off the enemy while bringing in critical and timely reinforcements.
So here were are in May of the year 2000. Apple is selling computers briskly. They have plenty of money in the bank. Their product line is coherent. The combined initiatives of USB, FireWire, Unix, and QuickTime have melded into a new consumer technology for video and the Internet.
But what is left to do? Where is the ship headed? The iMac may soon be reaching the end of its technological lifetime. Other companies, like Compaq, have carefully studied Apple's strengths and weaknesses, and found holes here and there. (For example, the iMac needs to lose its CRT and move to an LCD display.)
I do not see a lot of evidence that Apple has been able to use its newfound wealth to delve into and dream the future. Apple is now an army of ants, delivering beautiful toys for the General, but I see very few true visionaries and technology leaders being groomed or brought into the company.
Could it be that the General is not yet done basking in his success? Could it be that any employee of true vision and leadership cannot withstand the maniacal grip that Mr. Jobs has on his company? Could it be that at the very time when Apple should be investing hundreds of millions of dollars per year preparing for their future that they are instead too busy dancing in the limelight to realize that the real battle is yet to be fought?
Microsoft is now the beleaguered and crippled company. More and more, even heritage Microsoft customers are looking upon the company and its products with grave suspicion. A power vacuum is starting to form in the personal computer industry, and Apple is being lead, not by a man of the future, but by a man embittered by the past and not yet able to relinquish enough control to let the brilliant engineers of the company let loose and create a new future.
Some Generals can put a major victory behind them and humble themselves for the next battle. Others, fixated on the last victory become blind to the perils ahead.
Which path will Mr. Jobs follow?
I leave you with these thoughts as I must, for a time, attend to critical business in Washington D.C. Regrettably, no sooner have I taken up residence in California than I must spend awhile, perhaps many months, back in Washington, and I fear my schedule will not permit me to write this weekly column during that time. Perhaps when the crisis is over, I can resume The Fountain of Hippocrene.
In the meantime,
Peace be with you.
NikksuhrueTan of Cerran